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Margaret Killjoy

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Margaret Killjoy
Portrait of Margaret Killjoy wearing a black cloche hat and jacket
NationalityAmerican
Occupations
  • Author
  • musician
  • podcaster
Writing career
Genres
Notable worksDanielle Cain (series) The Sapling Cage
Musical career
Genres
Occupations
  • Singer
  • songwriter
  • instrumentalist
Websitebirdsbeforethestorm.net Edit this at Wikidata

Margaret Killjoy is an American author, musician, and podcast host. She is best known for her speculative fiction in the fantasy and folk horror genres, in particular for her two-book Danielle Cain series. Killjoy is involved in several musical projects across genres, including black metal, neofolk, and electronica. She founded the feminist black metal band Feminazgûl in 2018.

Life

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Killjoy is an anarchist, feminist, and anti-fascist.[1] She is a transgender woman.[1][2] Killjoy spent much of her early adult life as a "squatter and wanderer", then in the late 2010s began building a small cabin in the Appalachian Mountains on an anarchist land project.[3]

Career

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Writing

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Killjoy's fiction writing includes queer anarchist fantasy and folk horror.[2] Killjoy published What Lies Beneath the Clock Tower, a steampunk interactive novel, in 2011.[4] In 2017, Killjoy published the first of two books in the Danielle Cain series, which features a group of genderqueer, anarchist demon hunters in the American heartland. In the first novella, The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion, the group is hunted by a demon that appears in the form of a stag.[2][5] The second book in the series, The Barrow Will Send What It May, follows members of the same group as they run from the events of the first book.[5] The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion was nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award in 2017.[6][7] The Barrow Will Send What It May was nominated in the 31st Lambda Literary Awards for the Lambda Literary Award for Speculative Fiction.[8] A fundraiser has been announced for the third book to come in the series, The Immortal Choir Holds Every Voice[9] Killjoy contributed the short story "We Won't Be Here Tomorrow" to A Punk Rock Future, a 2019 anthology of speculative science fiction and fantasy.[7]

Killjoy has also edited and written non-fiction works, including the 2009 book Mythmakers & Lawbreakers: Anarchist Writers on Fiction (AK Press), a collection of interviews with anarchist authors of fiction including Ursula K. Le Guin and Alan Moore.[10] She also was an editor of SteamPunk Magazine, which was in print from 2007 to 2016.[10][11] In the magazine, Killjoy spoke about steampunk as a literary genre that challenges humanity's relationship with technology; she warned against technology separating humanity from its natural environment, which she believed to sacrifice diversity for efficiency.[12]

Music

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Killjoy founded the feminist black metal band Feminazgûl in 2018.[1] She released the band's first EP, The Age of Men Is Over, as a solo project the same year. Joined by Laura Beach as lead vocalist and Meredith Yayanos as violinist and theremin player, the band released its first full-length album, No Dawn for Men, in 2020.[2]

Killjoy is involved in several other musical projects: neofolk Alsarath, blackened doom Vulgarite, and electronica Nomadic War Machine.[2]

Podcasting

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Killjoy hosts the anarchist survivalist podcast Live Like the World Is Dying.[13] She launched her history podcast Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff, described as highlighting "complex stories of resistance that offer lessons and inspiration for us today," on May 2, 2022 at IHeartRadio.[14]

Written works

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Fiction

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Non-fiction

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  • Mythmakers & Lawbreakers: Anarchists Writers on Fiction, editor (2009)[18][19]
  • A Steampunk's Guide to the Apocalypse (2012)
  • We Are Many: Reflections on Movement Strategy from Occupation to Liberation, editor (2012)[20]
  • Take What You Need and Compost the Rest: An Anarchist Introduction to Post-Civilization Theory (2013)

Discography

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Alsarath

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  • Come to Daggers (2020)

Feminazgûl

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Main article: Feminazgûl § Discography
  • The Age of Men Is Over (EP, 2018)
  • No Dawn for Men (2020)

Nomadic War Machine

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  • I have a gun. Give me all the money in the register. (2010)
  • Always /// Forever (2018)
  • Every Breath Our Last (2019)
  • Creatures of the Wind (2020)
  • Are We Not Monsters (2020)

Vulgarite

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  • Fear Not the Dark Nor the Sun's Return (2020)

References

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  1. ^ a b c Kelly, Kim (November 12, 2020). "Inside Heavy Metal's Battle Against White Supremacy". Esquire. Archived from the original on August 29, 2021. Retrieved June 22, 2021.
  2. ^ a b c d e Kendrick, Monica (April 17, 2020). "Feminazgûl spins anarchy, feminism, and literature into atmospheric black metal on No Dawn for Men". Chicago Reader. Archived from the original on June 24, 2021. Retrieved June 22, 2021.
  3. ^ Killjoy, Margaret (March 31, 2020). "Inside Margaret Killjoy of Feminazgûl's Self-Built Home in the Woods". Astral Noize (Interview). Interviewed by George Parr. Archived from the original on June 25, 2021. Retrieved June 25, 2021.
  4. ^ Colyard, K. W. (December 31, 2018). "20 Books Like 'Black Mirror: Bandersnatch' To Read After You Finally Finish It". Bustle. Archived from the original on June 24, 2021. Retrieved June 24, 2021.
  5. ^ a b Liptak, Andrew (April 7, 2018). "Margaret Killjoy's Danielle Cain books are razor-sharp anarchist urban fantasies". The Verge. Archived from the original on June 24, 2021. Retrieved June 24, 2021.
  6. ^ Stubby the Rocket (May 10, 2018). "The 2017 Shirley Jackson Awards Nominees have been Announced". Tor.com. Archived from the original on June 24, 2021. Retrieved June 24, 2021.
  7. ^ a b Dunn, Thom (October 9, 2020). "This new fiction anthology is punk as f*ck". Boing Boing. Archived from the original on June 24, 2021. Retrieved June 24, 2021.
  8. ^ "31st Annual Lambda Literary Award Finalists -". Lambda Literary. March 7, 2019. Archived from the original on August 15, 2021. Retrieved June 24, 2021.
  9. ^ "New and Upcoming releases". The Transfeminine Review. Retrieved February 23, 2025.
  10. ^ a b Baker, Jeff (February 27, 2010). "Northwest Writers at Work: Ursula K. Le Guin is 80 and taking on Google". Oregon Live. Archived from the original on May 11, 2021. Retrieved June 25, 2021.
  11. ^ Allegra (2016). "Steampunk Magazine » Final Ever Issue! (and funding drive)". SteamPunk Magazine. Archived from the original on January 18, 2019. Retrieved June 25, 2021.
  12. ^ Fife, Wayne (2022). "Steampunk as Stealth Politics". Imaginary Worlds. Palgrave Studies in Literary Anthropology. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 31–52. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-08641-0_2. ISBN 978-3-031-08641-0.
  13. ^ Sugar, Rachel (December 29, 2020). "Are we doomed? An investigation". Vox. Archived from the original on July 17, 2021. Retrieved June 24, 2021.
  14. ^ @magpiekilljoy (March 18, 2022). "on May 2, my new podcast is launching on @coolzonemedia. it's called Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff. it's about... cool people... who did cool stuff. come for the history of revolt, stay for the, i don't know, more history of revolt" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  15. ^ Gilarek, Anna (2017). "The challenges of solidarity in an anarchist utopia: Margaret Killjoy's 'A Country of Ghosts' as a utopia of process". Beyond Philology. 14 (4): 81–96. ISSN 2451-1498.
  16. ^ Seyferth, Peter (2018). "A Glimpse of Hope at the End of the Dystopian Century: The Utopian Dimension of Critical Dystopias". ILCEA (30). doi:10.4000/ilcea.4454. ISSN 2101-0609.
  17. ^ Sharp, Sabine (2024). "Science Fiction as Trans Literature". In Vakoch, Douglas A.; Sharp, Sabine (eds.). The Routledge Handbook of Trans Literature. Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781003365938-31. ISBN 9781003365938.
  18. ^ Howard, Richard (2012–2013). "Review. Mythmakers and Lawbreakers: Anarchist Writers on Fiction". Foundation. 41 (114): 58–59. ISSN 0306-4964. ProQuest 1492264255.
  19. ^ Russo, Stacy (2010). "Review. Mythmakers and lawbreakers: anarchist writers on fiction". Counterpoise. 14 (1/2): 80–81. ISSN 1092-0714. ProQuest 374876679.
  20. ^ Bergfeld, Mark (2013). "A Review of "We Are Many"" (PDF). Contention: The Multidisciplinary Journal of Social Protest. 1: 91–93. ISSN 2330-1392.
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